Trained to thrive: strengthening personal resources of late-career teachers in early childhood

The teaching profession is facing many challenges, including increased workload, constant organizational changes, an aging workforce, and high turnover, especially in Early Childhood Education. These issues contribute to elevated stress and burnout, especially for teachers in the later stages of their careers, when personal resources may diminish or require greater support. Despite these challenges, research is limited regarding ways to support late-career teachers (LCT) in managing these pressures and sustaining their engagement. This study addresses this gap by developing and testing an intervention aimed at strengthening their personal resources (resilience, self-efficacy, SOC strategies, and Occupational future time perspective) to help teachers transition to more favorable profiles and to enhance their work engagement and well-being over time. A quasi-experimental design was implemented, featuring a three-day training program spread over four months in French-speaking Belgium. LCT were divided into an experimental group (n=42) and a control group (n=31). Participants self-evaluated personal resources, well-being, and engagement before, immediately after, and two months post-training. Analyses using repeated-measures ANOVA assessed changes in personal resources, work engagement and well-being. Results showed significant improvements in personal resources for the experimental group, with moderate to strong effect sizes. Although immediate post-training impacts on well-being were limited, significant gains emerged at follow-up, suggesting that the benefits of the training take time to consolidate. The training also had an immediate and sustained effect on work engagement. Overall, the intervention enabled teachers to transition toward more favorable profiles, supporting teachers to thrive in the medium term. The study suggests investing teachers' personal resources in professional development programs and creating supportive environments for teachers through combined pedagogical and managerial strategies to better face the growing demands. Further research could extend these findings to early- and mid-career teachers and investigate mechanisms to maintain sustained improvements in teacher resilience and mental health over time.